


May your dreams last longer than the night

by trace_of_scarlet



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), First Kiss, For SOMEONE'S sake lads please use your words, Have you hugged your Crowley today?, If not then GO HUG HIM RIGHT NOW HE NEEDS A HUG, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots in London, Ineffable Idiots in Paris, M/M, More pine than a forest in Canada, Spelling Aziraphale's name incorrectly because 'Aziraphael' fits the angel naming theme better, The only fandom where 'being put on a bus' is a good thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 18:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19707388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trace_of_scarlet/pseuds/trace_of_scarlet
Summary: The first time they touch is during that first storm, as the wind blows; Aziraphale's sheltering wing brushes Crowley's cheek.Crowley thinks,it's so soft.It's strange: he had wings just like that so little time ago, but he'd forgotten, somehow.(He stillhaswings, of course; they're black and sleek, but somehow they don't feel like those protecting him now.)





	May your dreams last longer than the night

**Author's Note:**

> For Michelle - for whom I started writing this in Whatsapp to distract her as she waited at US customs. She’s now had her holiday, come back and gone back to work, but I couldn’t quite leave this alone.
> 
> The title is a rough English translation of an album by Vangelis, about the events of May 1968. And yes, as noted in the tags, I spell Aziraphale's name as 'Aziraphael' throughout, because it's traditional for angels' names to end 'el' and honestly I think it looks prettier.
> 
> Usual thanks go to Eric for his angelic beta-ing duties.

The first time they touch is during that first storm, as the wind blows; Aziraphael's sheltering wing brushes Crowley's cheek.

Crowley thinks, _it's so soft._ It's strange: he had wings just like that so little time ago, but he'd forgotten, somehow.

(He still **has** wings, of course; they're black and sleek, but somehow they don't feel like those protecting him now.)

He takes another step closer, hoping it might happen again; it doesn't, but Aziraphael doesn't step away.

~*~

The first time they hold hands is in Ancient Greece, appropriately enough: Aziraphael is leading him to some taverna where apparently they do something to olives or something that nobody else can; the streets of Athens are crowded with worshippers celebrating something some God did to another God, probably involving wine or unusual acts with animals. For a moment he thinks he's lost the angel in the singing, laughing, chanting, cheering throngs; but then a plump warm hand takes his, gently pulling him down a quieter side street.

He thinks, _he's so warm._ Crowley knows he runs cold; mortals have told him so, usually with alarm, but Aziraphael is **warm**. Like late afternoon sunlight, not burning like a sword aflame.

"Not that way," Aziraphael tells him; "Come on."

When he realises what he's doing, the angel lets go; Crowley follows him anyway, and wonders if he'll do it again.

~*~

The first time Aziraphael falls asleep on him is during the Great Frost of 1709; Aziraphael has taken advantage of the fact that nobody wants to venture outdoors (or indeed, more than about three feet from a roaring fire) to finally get round to cataloguing all the books he rescued from the Great Fire, a bibliophile binge so advanced that Crowley actually wondered where the hel - heaven he was and came round to the angel’s shop to investigate, only to be roped into (Satan help him) _helping_. Although really, he’s only helping in the most abstract of senses, since Aziraphael keeps getting distracted from organising his books by wanting to read them. Crowley thinks, at first, that he’s just really absorbed in… whatever chronicle it is this time, before realising that the pressure against his back has turned into Aziraphael asleep on his shoulder, the book he'd been reading falling open into Crowley's lap.

Crowley thinks, _I’m so cold_. He’s cold-blooded, after all, and it seems like such a long time since summer. But the angel is **so** warm, and after a while Crowley risks shifting enough to curl up closer against him and take advantage of his bodyheat; even risks, when Aziraphael seems safely determined not to wake, tucking his hands under the angel’s coat until he can at least feel his fingertips again. It must be a Heavenly thing, he thinks; the residual warmth of that first Garden, maybe.

He doesn’t wonder, immediately, why exactly Aziraphael is asleep at all (Virtue is ever-vigilant, and all that) - or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he _chooses not to wonder_. If there’s one thing he’s learnt from humans it’s all the damage you can do by thinking too much.

The angel doesn’t wake up until Crowley is warm again, all the way through to the bones of himself, for what feels like the first time in centuries. 

“Feeling better?” Aziraphael asks him, pink-cheeked and politely stifling a yawn with one plump hand, and Crowley mutters something graceless in response, hurriedly taking his own hands away.

Aziraphael doesn’t seem to mind, though, and he doesn’t move apart again. Crowley doesn’t move either, although he tells himself it’s just the shared heat he’s seeking, and after a while the angel’s head falls back against Crowley’s shoulder again, his eyes closed. Crowley wonders about the grace of it - of _him_ : about the gift of the warmth of Eden, and the absolution granted by those compassionately fallen lids, with their long dark lashes against round pale cheeks. He wonders what they expect of him in return.

It’s a question without answer, like every other question he’s ever asked - like every question that left him Fallen. He can’t seem to stop asking them, no matter how hard he tries, and his hands worry themselves back under Aziraphael’s coat.

They don’t wake up again until it’s summer.

~*~

The first time Aziraphael kisses him is in Paris: the sticky-hot fermenting cauldron of early summer 1968. Aziraphael is trying to calm the escalating spiral of protests - or at least keep everyone involved peaceable enough to avert any deaths - and Crowley, naturally, is busy stoking the fires of revolution with every kind of fuel he can find. They run into each other entirely by accident - at least, Crowley presumes it’s entirely by accident for once - in a really quite acceptable basement cafe-bar near the Sorbonne that’s almost as hot as Hell itself, and where the chatter and music very nearly drowns out the rioting going on outside.

“Crowley!” says a voice behind him, and he’s almost certain he’s not imagining the delight in it when he turns round to see a harried-looking angel beaming at him. “What are you doing here?”

Aziraphael kisses him first on one cheek, then the other, in standard Paris-French fashion, before realising what he’s doing and turning a very interesting shade of delicate lobster-pink.

‘Same thing as you, but in the opposite direction,’ is what Crowley _tries_ to say, suavely, in response; in actuality, however, what he comes out with is a slightly strangulated “...Sfgl.”

He thinks, _how can he do this? How can he change the world from the ground up, with just a touch of skin to skin?_ He can feel a dot of pure heat on each cheek where the angel’s lips brushed his skin, so hot - even in this sauna of a bar - that he can’t help it: he brings up a hand to touch his own face where he’s certain there must be a mark. He finds nothing, which seems scarcely credible, but Aziraphael turns from that pale lobster pink to brilliant cherry-red.

“...Well,” the angel says, sounding flustered, “Shall we get a table? I don’t know about you, but I rather fancy some crepes.”

Crowley, as it happens, could not find the words in any language from Heaven, Hell or Earth to articulate just what _he_ fancies, but at the very least three bottles of wine might **help**.

He lets Aziraphael take his (still-upturned) hand and lead him to a table that happens to have just come free, and though the angel doesn’t let go of his hand all evening he does not kiss him again.

~*~

The first time Crowley kisses Aziraphael they are both sitting at the back of a bus, rumbling through the starry-eyed night to London in a world somehow without end. For all that Crowley has always enjoyed sleep, he can’t remember the last time he actually _needed_ it; for that matter, though the summer night is warm as a bath, somehow he feels cold right down to the sou - well, to the marrow of himself. It’s all the effort expended in keeping a flaming Bentley together for hours, perhaps; at least, that’s what he tells himself, and it’s the excuse he gives himself when his head falls heavy against Aziraphael’s shoulder.

The angel holds himself very still and stiff and upright for nearly twenty seconds, and then suddenly it’s as if he breathes out; breathes **in** the new world they might just have saved for themselves. 

He puts his arm around Crowley, and Crowley, curled into the heavenly warmth of him and half-dreaming, cannot help himself when he presses his lips gently against the curve of Aziraphael’s jaw. 

“Oh,” says Aziraphael, hushed and almost reverent; even in the barely-fluorescent dimness of the bus, Crowley can see him redden as he himself must have done, when the angel kissed his cheek so briefly in the dark heat of the bar in Paris. “Oh, my dear.”

Crowley thinks, _That’s it; I’ve blown it. The world’s still turning but our orbit is finally going to end._ He’s on the cusp of forcing himself to move away, to apologise, when Aziraphael brings his free hand up to gently stroke Crowley’s hair away from his face; this time, the touch doesn’t burn. This time, it’s as light as the feather brushing Crowley’s cheek as he is sheltered from the storm. This time, perhaps, it’s different to all the times before.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphael repeats, his hand now delicate at the corner of Crowley’s jaw, his blue eyes wide and wondering as he dips his head. 

He kisses Crowley on the lips, slow and sweetly, and Crowley doesn’t have to wait for him to do it again.


End file.
